Translation Principles and Agenda Revealed by Nan-Chung Young

Example Young-00

あれほどまでの感激をもって望んだ新高山各峰を知ると、それをさらに深く味わ うこともせずに、新しい山に向かう、僕の多情多恨な気持ちを悲しいことにさえ 思った。(Kano, 1941/2002, p. 91)

我抱了那麼大的期待與熱情，攀登後已熟知這些高峰的面貌和性情，但是未及深深 地欣賞它們，就棄如弊屣，立即轉向新的山群。我甚至對於自己「情到多時情轉薄」

的心境，感到悲哀了。(Kano, 1941; Young, Trans., 2000, p. 81)

This example, extracted from Young’s 2000 translation⁴² of the natural historical narrative by Kano, reveals how Young superimposes a literary allusion on the philosophical nature of the text.

The SL unit exemplifies the delicate sensibilities of Kano, who suddenly despised

himself for his grass-always-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence mindset after finally making it to the longed-for mountaintop of Mt. Jade East Peak (玉山東峰) in August 1931.

Young adds a four-character Chinese idiom, or cheng-yu (成語), which is “棄如弊屣”

[literally “thrown away like a worn-out pair of shoes”], to his translation “但是未及深深地欣賞 它們,” which is a very close equivalent of its counterpart “それをさらに深く味わうこともせ ずに” [having not yet fully appreciated the beauty of the mountains], a rather colloquial, plain expression in Japanese. Although left unexplained, the shoes metaphor in the TT intensifies the portrayal of Kano’s mental struggle. Young directly infuses his own interpretation of Kano as a hiker into the more explicitated TL context.

Furthermore, Kano described his mood swing as tajōtakon (多情多恨) [literally “with many deep feelings and much hatred”], by which he alluded to the title of a 1896 book by Kōyō Ozaki (尾崎紅葉), a novelist of the Meiji Era. To my knowledge, many Chinese-into-Japanese translators would retain the Kanji characters, offer a paraphrased translation, and/or explain the meaning. Young places a footnote on the etymology of the four-character expression in Japanese, and ends up opting for a line excerpted from a ci-poem of Nalan Xingde (納蘭性德), a Qing dynasty Chinese poet. This line, enclosed in quotation marks by Young in the TL unit (note that

42 Reference entry: Kano, T. (1941/2000). Shan, yun yu Fanren: Taiwan gaushan jishing (山、雲與蕃人: 台灣高山 紀行) [With the mountains, the clouds, and the Banjins: An account of treks through Taiwan's mountains]. (N.-C.

Young, Trans.) Taipei, Taiwan: Taiwan Interminds.

Kano did not do so for tajōtakon), reads “情到多時情轉薄” [passions, when growing too intense, would turn into hard-heartedness]. The poetical rendering has thus made the TL unit a

multi-layered description, thanks to a striking contrast between the cause and effect: “if your passions grow too intense, then you will find yourself hard-hearted.” The contrast is pronounced, especially when compared with tajōtakon, an expression whose surface meaning is one-layered for readers of the Chinese-language text.

Young, according to his footnote on the same page, strategically paraphrases the text, because the new quote in the TT can “explicitly convey what Kano meant.”

The explicitation highlighted in this example is of both literary and philosophical nature.

Similar examples will be explored in Sections 4.4 and 4.5.

Another example is shengfan (or seiban in Japanese). Although a derogatory term particularly in its original sense, the word would be kept by Young in his translation, because he considers it important for a translator to be faithful to the ST. The reason for using such a term is explained in the translator’s preface to many of Young’s works. Young emphasizes that he has a respect for indigenous peoples, and as a translator, the highest principle is the faithfulness to the source text (Young, 2014, pp. 335-336). This principle signifies Young’s attempt to retain the context of the ST, but does not suffice to explain Young’s agenda shaped by his view of literary journalism. To have a clearer picture, it is required to look at Young’s reportage style, in which he conveys desired messages through a wide array of annotated translations.

Young once revealed his trinity principles that laid down the groundwork for his

translation. These principles are: literature review, interview with local tribal elders, and on-site visits to historical sites (Young, 2014, pp. 314-315). It goes without saying that his 40-year hiking experience also helped him interpret the narratives. A bilingual look at the text shows

wide use of explicitation as a strategy (to be exemplified in Sections 4.4 and 4.5). On this point, the explicitations offer an inventory of specialized knowledge and added information.

That Young offers specialized knowledge is an embodiment of the spirit of literary journalism.⁴³ As to the added information, it is worth noting that Young himself placed much emphasis on philosophy. As a key finding from this research, Young characteristically yet covertly adds philosophical information to his translations (to be detailed in Section 4.5). The following passages will first discuss his view of philosophy.

For instance, he gave high praise for Dignity of Death and Respect for Life (死亡的尊嚴，

生命的尊嚴), a 1993 book by noted philosopher Charles Wei-Hsun Fu (傅偉勳), who was also a roommate of Young during his years at NTU. Young appreciated Fu’s reportage style throughout the book that is themed around a serious topic, saying Fu was able to move the reader with literary beauty and insightful analysis of stories of death (Young & Hsu, 1993/2016, p. 245).

This statement by Young is from a 1994 article of his, titled “Kuobie Wenshiue

Szshrnian” (闊別文學四十年) [Away from Literature for Four Decades], where he mentions that his investigation reports on old mountain trails are a blend of spatiality (physical hiking and fieldwork) and temporality (academic research on historical sites). It is also an allusion to geography (two-dimensional) and history (three-dimensional). He describes such fieldwork as a new practice of literary journalism, leading field researchers to show care about local history and search for one’s roots (Young & Hsu, 1993/2016, p. 248 & pp. 251-253). In fact, Young once taught Literary Journalism at National Dong Hwa University, where he would bring his students

43 Supported by the discussion in Subsection 2.1.3: “The interpretation of collected data takes expertise” and “Yang (2001) classifies Nan-Chung Young as a writer of literary journalism, acclaiming him for his extensive field investigation …… It is his long dedication that made Young a specialist who produced in-depth reports (pp.

131-132).”

to visit indigenous peoples for interviews and ask his students to write interview reports as a part of course requirements (Young, 2014, p. 337).

The 1994 article is key to deconstructing the agenda of Young as a translator-reporter.

Young’s enthusiasm was driven by a sense of mission, as he wanted to encourage young people to conduct research on the mountains and old mountain trails, believing that these places are a cradle for Taiwan’s cultural diversity and profundity. He began to expect himself to be an exploring hiker as well as a writer like Torii and Inō, since he was translating and annotating their precious investigation records at that time. As a result, he started to author investigation reports, many of which had a positive reception (Young & Hsu, 1993/2016, p. 248 & pp.

249-251).

In addition, Young reiterates how much he learned at the courses on literature and

philosophy he took at NTU. He enjoyed finding out the compelling literary nature that lies within calming philosophical thinking and debate. In this respect, Young considers philosophical

masterpieces the best literary works. For instance, to Young, The Old Testament and Buddhist sutrassuch as the Avataṃsaka Sūtra (華嚴經) are the height of literary works, and the authors of such religious works are great writers of literature. Taking the Nirvana Sutra (涅槃經) as an example, he regards this sutra, too, as a piece of reportage literature, because the scriptures are a portrayal of humanities as it depicts how the Buddha, at the age of 80, subconsciously returned to his place of birth like “a fallen leaf returning to its root” and how the Buddha, when entering the state of nirvana, promoted his teachings for the followers. In Young’s discussion, the

dissemination of such ideas would have required high literary skills (Young & Hsu, 1993/2016, pp. 244-245).

As discussed in Subsection 3.1.2 above, Young’s old mountain trail investigation reports predate his annotated translations of Japanese explorers (including Kano, other anthropologists, etc.). Those reports are structured them as academic reports without writing in a literary style.

Regarding the annotated translations (including his translation of Kano’s work), Young views the narratives of Taiwan’s mountains by the Japanese researchers as works of literary journalism, since these narratives are valuable records, as they describe expedition experiences and

reasoning processes by explorers who faced life-threatening peril, and are thus the equal of any masterpiece of literary journalism (Young & Hsu, 1993/2016, p. 247 & p. 249). It can be inferred from this statement that Kano’s text is a piece of literary journalism to Young, as is his

translation thereof.

Concerning the relation between literature and philosophy, the following anecdote also supports the exploration into Young’s agenda in this section.

Diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2014, Young had his malignant tumors removed three times before his death caused by tumor recurrence in August 2016. Earlier that month, Young, then a disease-stricken octogenarian, even attempted to translate Seven Summits and The Snow Leopard, two representative pieces of literary works on nature, hiking and mountains. In fact, there had been already Chinese-language translations, whose failure to convey the

philosophical meanings behind the texts, however, prompted Young to do so, according to his wife Hsu (Hsu, 2017, p. 16). Though an unfinished task, the attempt bears witness to Young’s strong determination to introduce hiking- and mountain-specific philosophical ideas through translation either to the public or for his own reference.

In conclusion, Young’s emphasis on literariness and philosophical quality has shaped the framework of his agenda regarding why he textually (and paratextually as well) added more

information. This textual addition is complementary to paratextual insertion, together showing Young’s expertise as a specialist and agenda as a translator-reporter. In this respect, the

contributing factors helped Young keep his style as a translator who impressed the readership with annotations.

As with Tan, Young characteristically fleshed out his translations with paratextual devices. Yet Subsection 3.3.2 unveils why and how Young still added much information to his translations. Young’s paratextual insertion has been studied by a few researchers, but the reasons for his intended explicitation in the TL units in non-paratextual forms remains under-researched and seems to be a very little-known fact. The reason, I presume, is simply that most researchers and even readers do not take a bilingual look at the STs.

Little scholarly literature can be found on Tan. For Young, Yu (2015) digs into the complicated identity of Tadao Kano as a nature lover, academic researcher, and hiker who engaged in interactions with Formosan indigenous peoples, and how these factors affected Kano’s writing (pp. 57-58). Wei (2015) describes the translator’s notes as interventional,

contrapuntal, and even invasive (p. 214). Wei argues that Young’s three-layered cultural identity (as a Taiwanese islander, a Japanese and a Siraya) contributed to the construct of his works, and that the profundity of Young’s life experience was responsible for his visibility as a translator, and the presentation of historical contexts (p. 228). Kao (2006) praises Young for his delicate supplementary details of Kano’s hikes (p. 106). Kao (2016) encourages readers to appreciate the beauty of Kano’s narratives of the high mountains of Taiwan by discussing the aesthetical elements (p. 162).

The statements of these researchers will be supported by the discussion in Sections 4.4 and 4.5 in the next chapter, with a focus on how Young retools the SL units into a mixture of

heterogeneous descriptions: more informative, philosophical, supplementary and explanatory than the Japanese original, an observation in line with Wei’s statement of Young’s translations being interventional, contrapuntal, and even invasive through his specification of specialized knowledge and addition of philosophical quality and emotional catalysts.